James LePage 8:59 am on 17 July 2025
Tags: , core   

AI Building Blocks for WordPress

As the open web evolves in the era of AI, WordPress must keep pace. To ensure our CMS remains the leading solution to democratize publishing, we are creating and maintaining a collection of projects that form technical Building Blocks for AI within the WordPress project.

These Building Blocks will allow users and developers alike to create powerful AI implementations within WordPress – pushing the CMS to serve more needs and be even more flexible than it already is. We have three immediate focuses and four deliverables. When used together, each contributes the required functionality to create anything from AI features, to workflows, to agents, both inside and outside of the software.

Each Building BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. is listed below with a short description and a more detailed overview article linked for further reading.

PHP AI Client SDK

The PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. AI Client SDK is an abstraction to interact with LLMs and embedding models from any major provider in a unified way. This allows developers to implement AI-powered features rapidly while giving users the freedom to choose their preferred AI provider and/or model.

We’re building this as two distinct Composer packages: a platform-agnostic PHP AI Client SDK developed collaboratively with the wider PHP community, and a WordPress-specific package that adds REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. endpoints, APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. key management, and other foundational WordPress integrations. This approach ensures broad PHP ecosystem compatibility while providing seamless WordPress experiences.

Abilities API

The Abilities API transforms WordPress from a collection of isolated functions into a unified, discoverable system. By creating a central registry of capabilities, it allows AI agents, automation tools, and developers to understand and interact with everything WordPress can do – from CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress. commands and REST API endpoints to custom logic and pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party functions.

MCP Adapter

The MCP (Model Context Protocol) Adapter allows WordPress to connect to AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT. It builds on the Abilities API to translate selected WordPress server-side abilities into a MCP server that exposes them as tools and resources.

Rather than hard-coding support for specific standards, we create Adapters, like this one, that translate between the Abilities API and external protocols. The MCP adapter is our first and most important implementation, positioning WordPress at the forefront of AI integration while maintaining the flexibility to support future standards.

AI Experiments Plugin

The AI Experiments Plugin brings together all the AI Building Blocks into a unified experience. It serves as both a powerful tool for users and a reference implementation for developers, demonstrating how the PHP AI Client SDK, Abilities API, and MCP Adapter work together in practice.

Starting as WordPress’s AI laboratory for experimentation, the plugin may evolve into a full-fledged AI Feature PluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins.. It can provide an AI playground, WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ integration, intelligent agents, and visual workflow builders – everything needed to explore and implement AI capabilities in WordPress.

To avoid early lock-in and maintain flexibility as AI technology rapidly evolves, we will use Canonical and Feature Plugins as a way to distribute these features to end consumers, while encapsulating the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. functionality and logic of the API projects in Composer packages. This makes it easy for plugin developers to use these official Building Blocks even before they are considered for WordPress Core. It is extremely important that developers can and do use these projects in production, and the approach of using Composer packages is our answer to this – aligning with our “canonical first, Core when ready” philosophy.

This work directly overlaps with some of the largest components of the Phase 3: Collaboration roadmap. It unlocks unique, futuristic capabilities that can be added through plugins. Here are some examples:

Site Admin

We must plan for these building blocks to be surfaced to end users in this new Site Admin interface. We hope to make it easy for developers to create AI Agents, chatbots, workflow automations and more, using the AI Building Blocks, and surfacing functionality through the new Site Admin UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing..

Real-Time and Asynchronous Collaboration

A logical and non-disruptive implementation of AI is within the Post Editor, specifically surfacing through Real-Time Collaboration and Commenting. Instead of working with human counterparts, comments could be assigned to AI, which would work to resolve them, creating a suggestion or proposed revision. Instead of collaborating in real time with people, why not collaborate with AI?

Media Library

Using AI to create and edit media is becoming increasingly popular. Additionally, there are many smaller implementations that AI could help with: auto alt text and captioning, intelligent grouping, multimodal search capabilities, and more.

It’s our intention to craft our projects with the end implementations in mind. By WordPress version 7.0, any WordPress user – enterprise or blogger, developer or designer – should be able to access, use, and build powerful AI features to aid in furthering their digital presence on the open web. Before that, product owners and plugin developers will have a robust toolkit to build AI features into their own offerings, which will work seamlessly with whatever core additions we may make in the future.

How this is made available to Core is still an open question, as is much with such fundamental releases on the horizon. Over the next several months, we’ll explore which building blocks and features should be merged to Core or remain canonical. Questions like “should AI providers and content generation be included in Core,” “do we add an AI Agent as a canonical plugin,” and “which protocols should we support” will surface and be addressed in Hallway Hangouts, Make proposals, and #core-ai discussions.

We invite you to join in on the work and discussions. This journey will shape how millions publish and share ideas on the open web, and we can’t do it alone. Join the #core-ai channel on WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., open GithubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ Issues, or begin contributing to the projects to help us build the next generation of AI tools for WordPress.

Resources and Repositories

Repositories

Reference Implementations

– The WordPress AI Team: Jeff, Felix, Pascal, James

#ai-building-blocks, #core

neillmcshea 2:42 am on 25 October 2025
Tags: , , ,   

Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Oct 22nd, 2025

The CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI team celebrated a major milestone this week: the Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. successfully merged into the WordPress 6.9 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. release. This achievement marks the culmination of intense, last-minute work, and the team recognized the extraordinary effort required to meet the core feature freeze deadline.

With the foundational server-side API now in core, the team’s focus is immediately shifting to the future, specifically managing the client-side (JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/.) portion of the Abilities API and planning the next phases for the AI Experiments pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. A major decision surfaced regarding the destination of the client-side code, with a consensus leaning toward moving it into the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ repository to leverage existing infrastructure and streamline future development.

The team is also cleaning up post-merge tasks, including resolving follow-up issues in the MCP Adapter and starting to define long-term maintenance and communication strategies for the new components now living in the WordPress core.

Key Highlights

🚀 Abilities API Shipped in WordPress 6.9 Beta

The server-side implementation of the Abilities API has successfully landed in the core WordPress beta, marking the project’s most significant milestone to date.

  • Core Integration Complete: The underlying server-side code for registering and retrieving abilities is now part of the WordPress 6.9 beta.
  • Team Recognition: The team gave a huge shout-out to Greg Ziółkowski for his “unyielding efforts” in finalizing the merge before the code freeze deadline.
  • Post-Merge Cleanup: Several related issues and documentation tasks in the Abilities API repository are being closed or moved, as the source of truth for the API now resides in the core WordPress develop repository.

💻 Client-Side Abilities and Future Development

The front-end portion of the Abilities API did not make the 6.9 beta deadline, prompting a major strategic discussion on its future home.

  • Client-Side Deferred: The JavaScript client-side code for abilities did not ship with 6.9, primarily due to the tight deadline and complexity, confirming that none of the client-side registration made it into the beta.
  • Strategic Move to Gutenberg: There is a strong consensus among the team and core contributorsCore Contributors Core contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org. to move the client-side code to the Gutenberg repository.
    • Reasoning: This location offers the best “testing ground” and development environment, simplifying integration with the BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor and command palette, and aligns with the strategy of centralizing JavaScript development.
  • Repo Fate: The long-term plan is to archive the original Abilities API repository once the feature stabilizes in core, officially making the WordPress develop repository the source of truth for the server-side API.
  • Maintaining Compatibility: The team will continue to explore methods (like Composer packages) to ship polyfills for WordPress 6.8 and older, ensuring continuity for developers who need to support previous versions.

🧪 AI Experiments Plugin Progress

Development is continuing on the plugin designed to host experimental AI features.

  • Unblocking Contributors: The team is focused on merging final scaffolding PRs to unblock more contributors who are eager to start building experimental features.
  • Design North Star: A preliminary design discussion considered using a card format for enabling/disabling features (similar to the Add Plugin screen) to provide a familiar user interface.
  • Prioritizing Credentials: The most immediate need is the basic service provider settings screen to allow users to enter API credentials and start experimenting.
  • Design Contribution: Product design work and mockups are being pulled from Fueled resources to initiate discussions and provide a conceptual starting point, inviting broader community feedback on the Needs Design tasks.

📦 PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. Client and MCP Adapter Milestones

Work is progressing on the core developer tools that power the AI features.

  • PHP AI Client (0.2) Released: The core PHP client SDK had its 0.2 version released.
  • Native API Support De-prioritized: Work to use native provider APIs (e.g., for Google Gemini) was deemed not urgent, as the current OpenAI-centric API format is sufficient for initial experimentation.
  • MCP Adapter Major Merge: The significant Major Refactor PR (#48) in the MCP Adapter has been merged, though the resulting codebase requires immediate follow-up testing and small fixes before it can be tagged as version 0.3.
  • MCP Follow-up: Ovidiu Galatan is currently tackling several small, technical follow-up issues stemming from the large merge, with a plan to prioritize and organize them for community pickup before he goes on vacation.

🚀 Testing and Next Steps

The team emphasized the need for immediate, widespread testing to flush out bugs during the beta phase.

  • External Testing Commitment: David Levine plans to actively engage external parties, including the Elementor team, for migrationMigration Moving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. and testing next week to provide a crucial influx of real-world feedback.
  • Real-World Validation: The successful independent integration of 11 abilities into the GatherPress plugin provides valuable evidence of the API’s immediate utility.
  • Process Documentation: The current process of moving features from a feature repository into core is noted as a necessary step, and the team plans to document this handover process to create a clear path for future feature incubation.

#check-in, #core-ai, #meeting, #summary

Jonathan Bossenger 9:46 am on 21 October 2025
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AI Chat Summary – 16 October 2025

Location: #core-ai Slack Channel 

The bi-weekly CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI meeting was held on October 16th, 2025:

  • Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. Progress and Inclusion in WordPress 6.9
    • @isotropic and @jason_the_adams led a discussion focused on the urgent need to finalize the Abilities API for inclusion in the upcoming WordPress 6.9 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. release, scheduled for the following week.
  • Abilities API HooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. and Extensibility
    • @jason_the_adams raised a discussion around the hooks needed to maintain an Abilities API pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party that can provide more bleeding edge features between core releases. @justlevine and @jason_the_adams agreed the current MVPMinimum Viable Product "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia hooks, like the *_args filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. and unshaped metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress., should allow for experimentation and future improvements.
  • Abilities API Categories and Filtering
    • @isotropic discussed the need for robust filtering of abilities, particularly for AI agents, but the group concluded the current categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. and meta system provides sufficient flexibility for now, with the responsibility of filtering abilities falling more on systems like MCP Adapter rather than the core Abilities API.
  • Abilities API and AI Experiments
    • @isotropic and @justlevine highlighted the need for abilities to support AI use cases, such as handling dates and inserting blocks, and encouraged @jmarx75 to create issues in the AI Experiments repo to propose new abilities. The group agreed these could start in experiments before potentially flowing into core.
  • Abilities API Documentation and Terminology
    • @karmatosed suggested adding a terms/glossary section to the Abilities API handbook to help provide clarity, and @justlevine referenced Tanstack’s “Philosophy” approach as a potential model for documenting the project’s beliefs and principles.

#core-ai, #meeting, #summary

neillmcshea 2:49 pm on 16 October 2025
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Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Oct 16th, 2025

This week’s meeting was characterized by an urgent focus on hitting the Friday milestone for the Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. to ensure inclusion in the upcoming WordPress 6.9 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. release (scheduled for the following week). The team quickly made a decision to formally extend the internal milestone deadline to Friday to allow time for critical reviews and merges.

The discussion revolved around which in-progress features (like categories, coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. abilities, and filtering) could realistically be finalized without introducing complexity or technical debt. The team prioritized confirming that the core functionality—registering and retrieving abilities—was done, while tabling or deferring more complex “icing on the cake” features like filtering. Jason Adams was tasked with raising an immediate decision point to leadership on whether to pull an in-progress feature if it could not be finalized quickly.

Finally, the team received exciting external validation as Jeff Marx shared that he had successfully implemented 11 abilities using the Abilities API in the GatherPress pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party, demonstrating the API’s readiness for real-world plugin development.

Key Highlights

🗓️ Abilities API Deadline and Scope

The team established a firm internal deadline to complete all necessary work for the Abilities API to make it into the core WordPress 6.9 beta.

  • Milestone Reset: The internal milestone deadline was formally moved from Thursday to Friday to allow critical work to be completed without unnecessary panic.
  • Core Deadline: The target for core integration is tied to the WordPress 6.9 Beta 1 release, which is scheduled for the beginning of the following week (the 21st).
  • Core Functionality Complete: The essential goal for 6.9—the ability to register and retrieve abilities—is already complete.
  • Focus on Core, Defer “Icing”: The team prioritized shipping the core API and deferring optional features like filtering to avoid introducing complexity or missing the deadline. Filtering was deemed non-essential, as developers can always retrieve all abilities and filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. them manually.
  • Urgent Decision Point (Cherry on the Cake):
    • An in-progress feature (the “half cherry,” likely a complex required field like categories) was noted as partially merged on the PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. side but lacking JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/./client-side completion.
    • Action: Jason Adams was tasked with getting an immediate decision from core leadership (James and Greg) by end of play the following day (Friday) on whether to pull the unfinished feature entirely or push for its completion by the new deadline.

Abilities API Core Features Status

The team reviewed the status of key features intended for the 6.9 core merge:

  • Categories (Grouping Mechanism):
    • Status: Work is in progress and is now required due to a prior decision.
    • Plan: Ovidiu Galatan committed to completing the implementation and aligning the MCP Adapter with the required categories today, provided the filtering work is paused.
  • Core Abilities:
    • Status: A draft PR exists but is unlikely to be fully reviewed, approved, and merged in time.
    • Decision: The team decided to defer most initial built-in core abilities (excluding the ability fetching ability) for now to avoid slowing down the overall 6.9 timeline.
  • Filtering:
    • Status: Work is in progress but is highly complex.
    • Decision: The team agreed to pause/punt the formal filtering feature as it is not a blocker for using the Abilities API.

Client and Experiments Update

The focus shifts to completing client tools now that the Abilities API is nearing its core deadline.

  • PHP AI Client (0.2): Jason Adams is finalizing PRs to prepare for the 0.2 release of the PHP client.
    • New Feature: A preferred model feature is being added, allowing developers to provide a prioritized list of models, with the client automatically falling back to the next available model that fits the prompt criteria.
  • WordPress AI Client (0.1): Development will ramp up on the WordPress AI client wrapper (0.1 release) in the coming weeks, especially once Jason Adams shifts to full-time work on the project.
  • Experiments Plugin: Work is continuing on design mockups and product definition for future features (V2/V3). The plugin’s release is not coupled to the WordPress 6.9 release, allowing the team to iterate on it until December 2nd and beyond.

External Validation and Testing

The project received positive external validation for the Abilities API.

  • GatherPress Integration: Jeff Marx reported successfully implementing 11 abilities in the GatherPress plugin over the weekend, demonstrating the API’s effectiveness for managing events and venues.
  • Actionable Feedback: David Levine offered to review Jeff’s code and potentially create a demo video, ensuring the new code serves as valuable prior art for future API refinement before the 6.9 core deadline.

MCP Adapter Status

Focus is shifting back to the adapter now that Abilities API is nearing completion.

  • Major Refactor PR: The largest outstanding piece of work, Ovi’s Major Refactor PR, needs final review.
  • Next Steps: Ovi will align the adapter’s code with the newly required categories from the Abilities API. Once this is done and reviews are complete, the team plans to merge the PR and bump the version to the next major iteration (e.g., 0.3) to move past this stalled point.
  • Issue Cleanup: The team closed an old, ambiguous issue related to version numbering (issue 40) to reduce confusion.

#core-ai, #meeting, #summary

neillmcshea 3:52 am on 9 October 2025
Tags: , ,   

Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Oct 8th, 2025

This week’s meeting focused on updating the team on various component progress, including the Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., AI Experiments pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party, and PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php./WordPress AI Clients. A major announcement was the deployment of the MCP adapter on WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/, marking a significant step in dogfooding the new technology.

The primary discussion points centered on scope and definitions for the Abilities API, particularly what constitutes a required vs. optional parameter, and how to define “metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress..” The team also had an in-depth conversation about the user experience for AI settings, specifically managing provider credentials and feature toggles, acknowledging the high friction point this represents for users.

Key Highlights

Announcements & Overall Progress

  • MCP Adapter on WordPress.com: The MCP (Modular Capabilities Package) adapter has been deployedDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. and is actively being used on WordPress.com, confirming its real-world application.
  • Roadmap Review: Tammie Lister proposed wrapping up the roadmap discussion issue to maintain flow and actionability.
  • Abilities Repo Health: The Abilities Repository has 11 PRs and 1 draft, with five issues in the current milestone, signaling good progress.
  • MCP Repo Structure: Neill McShea and David Levine have scheduled a meeting to clarify and structure the MCP repository information, allowing for more detailed updates in the future.

Abilities API & Scope Management

  • Categories Requirement: The team agreed that a grouping mechanism (like “categories”) needs to be a required parameter from the first iteration of the Abilities API.
    • Reasoning: This is crucial for future-proofing, ensuring order in a potential “wild west” of abilities, and allowing for filtering when there are thousands of tools in WordPress.
  • Meta vs. Root-Level Arguments: A long discussion was held to define a clear boundary for placing arguments in the meta object versus at the root level of an ability.
    • Proposed Definition: Root-level arguments should be for anything required to execute the action (e.g., input/output schema, callback functions). Meta should be for anything descriptive, optional, or speculative/experimental that is not required for execution (e.g., annotations, show in REST, show in MCP).
    • Action: Jason Adams will work on a clear, concrete definition to be documented.
  • Scope Concern: David Levine raised a concern about “scope creep” and “shipping tech debt,” urging the team to confirm that currently planned speculative features (like annotations) are truly necessary for the first release, given that CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. does not easily remove features once they ship.

AI Client Updates

  • PHP AI Client (0.2): Felix Arntz is prioritizing the release of a 0.2 version of the PHP AI Client, with most work already complete and just a few outstanding PRs.
  • WordPress AI Client (Wrapper): The team needs to make a decision on whether the client wrapper should adjust for WordPress coding standardsWordPress Coding Standards The Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook. May also refer to The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the PHP coding standards. (e.g., snake_case functions and returning WP_Error) instead of strictly adhering to PHP’s best practices (camelCase functions and throwing exceptions).

AI Experiments Plugin

  • Issues and Mockups: Jeff Paul reported new issues opened, aligning with the roadmap, including the need to wrap up product definition and design mockups for future versions (V0.2 and V0.3).
  • Engineering Starts: Engineering work from the Fueled side is scheduled to begin within the next week or so.
  • Abilities Integration: The key question remains: which Abilities API features (those that will land in 6.9) will be exposed and built upon within the AI Experiments plugin?

Basic Admin Setting Screen UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it.

  • Two Settings Concerns: There are two main concerns for the settings screen: 1) Provider Credentials and 2) Feature Toggles (enabling/disabling specific AI experiments).
  • Centralized Provider Settings: The ideal approach is to have a single, central screen to configure one or more AI providers, which all AI plugins (both Core and third-party) could then leverage. This prevents users from having to enter the same credentials multiple times.
  • Component-Based UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing.: The team discussed the need for reusable UI components that allow individual feature settings pages to either select a pre-configured provider or offer a graceful flow (e.g., a modal) to add a new one without forcing the user to bounce out to the main settings page.
  • Friction Point: Tammy Lister and Jeff Paul emphasized that provider setup is the highest friction point for user adoption, requiring an emphasis on clear, informative design, especially regarding token usage and potential costs.

#core-ai, #meeting, #summary

neillmcshea 1:29 am on 2 October 2025
Tags: , ,   

Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Oct 1st, 2025

High-Level Call Summary

The meeting focused primarily on progressing the Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. and the MCP Adapter for the upcoming 6.9 release, establishing clear next steps, and making key decisions to keep momentum. A spirit of urgency and a commitment to an iterative, “alpha” approach to early development were evident, particularly for the MCP Adapter, to avoid accruing technical debt and to accelerate testing. Key outcomes included narrowing the scope for abilities included in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. 6.9 (focusing on the API itself and a few small, stable tools), agreeing to introduce categories as a required part of ability registration, and setting a plan to merge the major refactor of the MCP Adapter to enable wider testing. The team also celebrated a key personnel announcement regarding a transition to an AI-related engineering leadership role at Automatic.

Topics and Supporting Highlights

Abilities API Update & Milestones

The team reviewed the status of the Abilities API, which is a key focus for the upcoming release. A strong emphasis was placed on making necessary decisions quickly, with a general consensus that decisions could be made asynchronously due to high engagement.

  • The team is aiming for an optimistic release plan of one milestone, but pessimistically planning for a pre-6.9 and a 6.9 milestone.
  • There are several issues currently without milestones that need to be prioritized.
  • The project has 10 open Pull Requests (PRs), with 3 failing tests and 7 needing approval before they can be shipped or slated for a release.
  • A decision on issue #30 related to tooling over repos was postponed to prioritize 6.9 tasks.
  • Decisions regarding milestones were mostly made asynchronously due to team members jumping in and adding comments.

Abilities API: Core Inclusion & Roadmap

A major discussion point centered on the scope of abilities to include in the core 6.9 release, ultimately favoring a limited approach.

  • The Abilities API itself is the primary achievement for 6.9.
  • The decision was made to ship only one or two very small, stable tools with the core Abilities API in 6.9.
  • Greg’s proposed site info was highlighted as a good candidate for a core ability, as it’s a base unit of WordPress with useful information.
  • The longer list of proposed abilities (Issue #52) will be moved to the Experiments pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party to allow for broader testing and exploration of different implementation approaches (e.g., naming conventions).
  • The roadmap for the Abilities API will be updated and shipped following the decision to limit core tools.

Abilities API: Categories Decision

A critical feature for organizing and exposing abilities to the AI was discussed and agreed upon.

  • The team agreed that categories should be a required part of registering an ability in the API.
  • This feature is necessary for the MCP Adapter to present an “approachable, discoverable set of abilities” to the AI, rather than “throwing every single ability” at it.
  • Ovi is committed to owning the Pull Request (PR) to implement categories in both the Abilities API and the MCP Adapter repos.
  • It was clarified that a way to register a categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. separately will be needed since a category must have a description.

MCP Adapter Update and Stability

The discussion around the MCP Adapter focused on accelerating its release and addressing community concerns about the stability of the protocol itself.

  • The major refactor (0.3/third iteration) is considered a “developer version” or “alpha” and should be merged and released as soon as possible to allow for testing.
  • The team agreed to not worry about technical debt or deprecation warnings at this early, experimental stage, and to simply remove deprecated code in the current PR.
  • The goal is to have the 0.3 version available during the WordPress 6.9 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. period as the officially linked version in announcement posts.
  • Community concern about MCP’s stability was addressed by reiterating that the adapter approach was specifically chosen to future-proof the Abilities API; if the MCP protocol changes or another standard emerges (like “TypeCP”), the Abilities API remains reusable with a new adapter.
  • A plan was made to publish a blog post or strong communication before 6.9 to clarify the adaptive nature of the Abilities API and address these stability concerns.
  • James and (possibly) Jonathan will “tag team” a post to encourage the 70 Core AI contributors to go test the new adapter release.

Action Items & Next Steps for the Week

This heading focuses on the immediate, assigned tasks and plans discussed to be completed before the next check-in.

  • Ship the MCP Adapter: The primary action is for Ovidiu and James to proceed with merging and releasing the major refactor (0.3) of the MCP Adapter after final review, despite its “alpha” state.
  • Write Testing/Announcement Post: James and Jonathan will collaborate on a post (likely a blog post or SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. announcement) to encourage testing of the newly released MCP Adapter, setting clear boundaries and opportunities for community engagement.
  • Implement Categories PR: Ovidiu committed to creating the Pull Requests for the Abilities API and the MCP Adapter to implement categories as a required field for registering an ability.
  • Update and Publish Roadmaps: Tammy will finalize updates to the Abilities API roadmap (Issue #83) and the Experiments roadmap based on the decisions made (e.g., scoping the number of core abilities).
  • Check on Built-in Abilities: James will confirm with Greg (or another team member) the creation of the two basic, built-in abilities for 6.9 core (e.g., site info).

Contribution & Workflow Reminders

This section pulls out a specific process reminder about crediting contributors and mentions general developer exploration.

  • Co-Author Credit for PRs: Jeff reminded the team to be mindful of using the generated co-author-by text on PR comments when merging commits to ensure proper, liberal credit is given to all contributors (filtering out simple “+1, great idea” comments).
  • Modular Architecture Focus: A general architectural desire was restated to keep all features modular to easily pull features in and out, avoiding complex dependencies.
  • Future Ability Exploration: James noted an interest in doing personal exploration (not assigned work) using tools like GPT-5 Pro to test various ability naming conventions (e.g., verb naming) to see which is most effective for different AI models.
  • Potential for Non-AI Adapters: The idea was briefly resurfaced that the Abilities API could potentially be used to create adapters for non-AI contexts, like a command line (CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress.) or REST interface, providing “free” functionality for simple plugins.

Contribution & Workflow Reminders

The team addressed internal best practices and forward-looking architectural ideas, focusing on how contributions are credited and the potential future uses of the Abilities API structure.

  • Potential for Non-AI Adapters: The idea was briefly resurfaced that the Abilities API could potentially be used to create adapters for non-AI contexts, like a command line (CLI) or REST interface, providing “free” functionality for simple plugins.
  • Future Ability Exploration: James noted an interest in doing personal exploration (not assigned work) using tools like GPT-5 Pro to test various ability naming conventions (e.g., verb naming) to see which is most effective for different AI models.
  • Co-Author Credit for PRs: Jeff reminded the team to be mindful of using the generated co-author-by text on PR comments when merging commits to ensure proper, liberal credit is given to all contributors (filtering out simple “+1, great idea” comments).

Community Feedback & Strategic Communication

Proactive communication is planned to address community concerns regarding technical decisions and highlight the strategic approach being taken.

  • Plan Proactive Announcement: A commitment was made to publish a clear, strategic announcement (likely a blog post before 6.9) to explain the decoupled adapter architecture and celebrate its future-proofing advantage.
  • Defend the Adapter Approach: The response emphasizes that the Abilities API’s decoupled adapter architecture is the precise solution to community questions about the stability of the MCP protocol, allowing the core to remain stable regardless of external protocol changes.
  • Address MCP Stability Concerns: The team acknowledged the recurring community question about the stability of the MCP protocol and the risk of it being superseded by a better standard.

Action Items & Next Steps for the Week

The team established a short list of immediate, assigned tasks to be completed to maintain momentum toward the 6.9 release.

  • Check on Built-in Abilities: James will confirm with Greg (or another team member) the creation of the two basic, built-in abilities for 6.9 core (e.g., site info).
  • Update and Publish Roadmaps: Tammy will finalize updates to the Abilities API roadmap (Issue #83) and the Experiments roadmap based on the decisions made (e.g., scoping the number of core abilities).
  • Implement Categories PR: Ovidiu committed to creating the Pull Requests for the Abilities API and the MCP Adapter to implement categories as a required field for registering an ability.
  • Write Testing/Announcement Post: James and Jonathan will collaborate on a post (likely a blog post or Slack announcement) to encourage testing of the newly released MCP Adapter, setting clear boundaries and opportunities for community engagement.
  • Ship the MCP Adapter: The primary action is for Ovidiu and James to proceed with merging and releasing the major refactor (0.3) of the MCP Adapter after final review, despite its “alpha” state.

#core-ai, #meeting, #summary

Jonathan Bossenger 6:47 am on 26 September 2025
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AI Chat Summary – 18 September 2025

Location: #core-ai Slack Channel 

Agenda: No formal agenda this week

The bi-weekly CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI meeting was held on September 18th, 2025:

Key discussion points:

  • WordPress 6.9 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1: A reminder that the beta is scheduled for October 21st and when the first iteration of the Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. will be merged into core.
  • Changing Package Type: @justlevine raised a topic about changing the package type of the Abilities API from a library to wordpress-pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. @isotropic agreed to the change as it doesn’t impact existing plugins. However, he suggests it’s important to note in the docs and messaging that this is going core, and not intended to be a plugin. Currently the suggested way to use this pre 6.9 is using Composer to install it into the vendor directory. A good example of this is how WooCommerce has done it.
  • Composer Package Expectations: The team wants to define what they expect from a Composer package to align with architectural decisions.
  • Client-Side Abilities in 6.9: @isotropic expressed interest in including the client-side abilities in WordPress 6.9, noting that the relevant PRs are in a good state. However, the method of inclusion and the specific abilities to ship need to be determined.
  • Number of Abilities in Core: There was a consensus to include a minimal number of “sparkly” (i.e., impactful) abilities in 6.9, with the option to add more later. @flixos90 cited the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. as an example of an API shipped with few initial endpoints that were later expanded.
  • “Discover Abilities” as a First Ability: @justlevine suggested making “discovering abilities” the first ability, referencing ChatGPT’s initial connector specification.
  • MCP Adapter 0.2.0 Release: @psykro requested a 0.2.0 version of the MCP adapter, as only 0.1.0 is currently available on Packagist. This would allow for easier access to the latest code for demos. @ovidiu-galatan has a large pull request that could be considered for this release, despite its size, to avoid delaying needed functionality.

Decisions and Next Steps:

  • @isotropic and @gziolo will drive the conversation in the issues next week to decide on client inclusion and what abilities will ship in 6.9, aiming for a decision by mid-next week.
  • A release discussion issue will be created to set up a milestone for the MCP adapter 0.2.0 release.

#core-ai, #meeting, #summary

neillmcshea 9:22 pm on 25 September 2025
Tags: , ,   

Core-AI Contributor Check-in September, 24 2025

Attendees:

  • Jason Adams
  • Jeff Paul
  • Grzegorz Ziółkowski
  • Ovidiu Galatan

Summary

Topics Covered & Recommendations

The discussion focused on defining the structure and scope of the WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., particularly in preparation for the WordPress 6.9 release.

CRUD Operations for Abilities: The group discussed how to handle Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations for post types. It was recommended to move away from a single “CRUD” ability for a given post type. Instead, the recommendation is to break operations into separate abilities to allow for clearer annotations (e.g., marking “delete” as destructive) and to improve how AI models interact with them. Jason noted that “Create” and “Update” could be reliably combined into a single ability, where the presence of an ID parameter would indicate an update. It was recommended that “Read” and “Delete” remain separate abilities.

Handling Different Post Types: A key topic was whether to create a single set of abilities that can operate on any post type via a parameter, or to create discrete abilities for each post type. The group leaned toward recommending the creation of discrete abilities for each post type (e.g., posts, pages). This approach would avoid confusing AI models with WordPress-specific data concepts and the terminology that can arise (e.g., a “post” of type “post”).

Permissions and Security: Grzegorz highlighted the need to account for WordPress’s granular, context-aware permission levels. The current system uses a permissions callback that receives request parameters to make contextual decisions. The group also discussed the idea of an “ability vetting check” to pre-filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. abilities based on a user’s role to avoid exposing tools they cannot use.

Ability Organization: Namespaces and Categories: The conversation covered methods for organizing a large number of abilities, especially for AI consumption via a layered tool approach.

Namespaces: It was discussed that namespaces should be used to indicate ownership and prevent naming conflicts.

Categories: It was proposed that categories would group abilities by function. For AI, this allows a model to first request a list of categories and then request the specific abilities within a chosen categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging., which prevents performance degradation as the number of abilities grows. It was recommended that categories be registered with their own descriptions so the AI can understand their purpose.

Nuances of WordPress Actions: The group noted that standard terms like “delete” have special meaning in WordPress, where an item is typically moved to the trashTrash Trash in WordPress is like the Recycle Bin on your PC or Trash in your Macintosh computer. Users with the proper permission level (administrators and editors) have the ability to delete a post, page, and/or comments. When you delete the item, it is moved to the trash folder where it will remain for 30 days. rather than being permanently deleted. The phrasing and description of abilities must be clear to explain these nuances to an AI.

Next Steps

The primary goal is to finalize the scope of the Abilities API for WordPress 6.9.

Finalize 6.9 Scope: The team needs to decide what a user should be able to accomplish with the API in the 6.9 release to create a cohesive and valuable system from the start. The main tangible use case driving development is the MCP (Multi-Content Platform) adapter.

Implement Core Features for 6.9: Based on the discussion, Grzegorz recommended prioritizing two key features for the next two weeks:

  1. Ability Filtering: Add the functionality to query for abilities based on criteria like namespace or category.
  2. REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. Exposure Control: Implement a flag or property that allows developers to prevent an ability from being exposed via the REST API, for abilities intended for server-side use only.

Decide on Required Categories: A decision needs to be made on whether to require a category for every ability registration in version 6.9. Jason advocated for this to ensure the system scales well with a growing number of abilities , while Grzegorz raised the concern that users might just default to an “uncategorized” option.

#check-in, #core-ai, #meeting

neillmcshea 3:47 pm on 10 September 2025
Tags: , ,   

Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Sept 10th, 2025

Announcements (5 min)

Progress this week

Abilities update (@karmatosed )

Milestones:

  • Added a v0.1.2: which is next for pre betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. (more milestones to come)
  • Added an Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. board to monitor what is going on with project and include all milestones. https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/252/views/1

Info:
Using board to surface:
https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/252/views/2?sliceBy%5BcolumnId%5D=Milestone

Experiments Update (@jeffpaul)

Milestones:

  • TBD

Info:

  • Assembling additional issues with feature definition and mockups
  • Compiling overall Agenda issue to link out to various sub-issues for milestone releases ahead of WP 6.9
  • Synthesizing existing issue feedback to iterate on definition & mockups
  • Scaffold pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party & being building out features

PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. Update (@jeffpaul)

Milestones:

  • TBD

Info:

  • Assembling additional issues with feature definition and mockups
  • Compiling overall Agenda issue to link out to various sub-issues for milestone releases ahead of WP 6.9
  • Synthesizing existing issue feedback to iterate on definition & mockups
  • Scaffold plugin & being building out features

Questions/Decision points (15 min)

Week’s goals (10 min)

  1. (Start) Roadmaps for all projects in GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/
    1. Abilities – James, Tammie : get roadmap out or pass out trying
    2. MCP – Neill, James, Ovi (Neill did not make progress on this, last week 🙁 )
    3. Experiments – Jeff
    4. Client JS Package: Jason, Felix

AI Generated Summary of the Call (Posted after the call)

#check-in, #core-ai, #meeting

Tammie Lister 10:31 am on 5 September 2025
Tags: ,   

AI Chat Summary – 4 September 2025

Location: #core-ai Slack Channel 

Agenda: No agenda this week

The bi-weekly CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. AI meeting was held on 4 September , 2025:

WCUS & Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.

@jeffpaul highlighted the recent face‑to‑face sessions on the Core AI table at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US and thanked @justlevine for coordinating remote participation.

Handbook & Badge Development

@karmatosed facilitated work on refining the AI handbook and creating the WordPress AI badge. There are a number of new pages for the handbook including the Contributing badge page.

PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. AI Client – 0.1.0 MVPMinimum Viable Product "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia & Roadmap

@jason_the_adams announced the 0.1.0 MVP release for the PHP AI Client, with a demo shown on stage. The demo code is on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/: https://github.com/felixarntz/wp-ai-sdk-chatbot-demo
Roadmap items for versions 0.2.0–0.4.0 are on the issue board: https://github.com/WordPress/php-ai-client/issues/8

Project Updates

WP‑Specific Layer – WordPress AI Client

@flixos90 explained progress on wp‑ai‑client: the layer adapts the generic PHP SDK to WordPress, adds a settings screen for APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. credentials, and provides REST endpoints for client‑side usage. The project is in early work‑in‑progress; interested contributors can follow issue #1: https://github.com/WordPress/wp-ai-client/issues/1

Abilities API & WP 6.9 Timeline

@jeffpaul noted that the Abilities API effort is the most urgent for the WP 6.9 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 release on October 21. @karmatosed applied a milestone to the issue, giving the team a sense of time. @isotropic is working on the roadmap with @karmatosed for this week’s priority.

AI Experiments Canonical PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party

@jeffpaul shared work is going on to create a GitHub issue that consolidates the roadmap and a high‑level list of planned features. Feedback from Contributor Day is welcome, and a formal roadmap issue will be added next week.

Sharing

#core-ai, #meeting

neillmcshea 3:42 pm on 3 September 2025
Tags: , ,   

Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Sept 3rd, 2025

CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.-AI Contributor Weekly check-in: September 3rd , 2025 @12 noon EST
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85296485830?pwd=u2QlmopcccfTu8zvLnUKLbg61kE4Ol.1

Announcements (5 min)

  1. A very successful Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. at WCUS :tada: :wordpress:
    1. Thank you, @justlevine, for keeping things lit remotely
  2. PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. AI Client SDK is now available in its first release: https://github.com/WordPress/php-ai-client/releases/tag/0.1.0

Progress this week (5 min)

  1. Update to the handbook:
    1. https://make.wordpress.org/ai/handbook/contributing/
    2. https://make.wordpress.org/ai/handbook/resources-and-links/
    3. https://make.wordpress.org/ai/handbook/get-involved/
    4. https://make.wordpress.org/ai/handbook/contributing/project-management/ (WIP)

Questions/Decision points (15 min)

  1. New format for Weekly Check-in review proposal, based on comments in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and discussions at WCUS:
    1. Focus on updates from each of the projects (Project Facilitator + Lead)
    2. Review next Milestone – and tasks to support that milestone
    3. Blockers and Opportunities
  2. High level – Let’s get an update on:
    1. Client/Abilities/MCP projects
  3. Review of AI Client roadmap
  4. From David: Review mcp-adapter status and next steps.
    1. Align on immediate fixes and workflows.
    2. Update v0.1.0 release notes to prevent user confusion.
  5. Badges for Core AI – For now, contributors need to request themselves as per the instructions noted here. Jeff is working on being able to add a link himself
  6. Reminder from Tammie: As we fix roadmaps, let’s also reflect those in the projects. We will do that but I want to ensure they get logged into traceable formats that can take action also.
  7. Tomorrow’s biweekly Slack chat – we need a facilitator

Week’s goals (10 min)

  • …
  • …

AI Generated Summary of the Call

The meeting focused on recapping the successful WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US contributor day and setting up a new, more efficient format for future weekly check-ins. The team discussed the progress of various projects, including the PHP AI Client SDK, Abilities APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., and MCP Adapter, and identified key milestones and areas needing attention. They also established a plan for creating roadmaps for all projects and coordinating communication with different external audiences, such as pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party developers and hosts.

Highlights by Topic

WordCamp US Contributor Day

  • There were about 30 people at the contributor table, plus around a dozen people who joined online throughout the day.
  • The attendees had diverse interests, ranging from general curiosity about AI to technical contributors trying to break the PHP client.
  • The team learned that having specific roles for contributors would be beneficial for future events, such as WordCamp Asia.

Project Updates & Roadmaps

  • PHP AI Client SDK: Version 0.1.0 was released just before Matt’s presentation at WordCamp US, with significant help from contributors at the event. The roadmap for version 0.2.0 focuses on battle-testing the client, improving provider settings, and adding a message builder. Version 0.3.0 will introduce streaming support, and a later version will include embeddings.
  • Abilities API: Version 0.1.0 was also released before WordCamp US. The next major discussion points are determining which abilities will be included in WordPress 6.9 and working on hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. to expand its functionality.
  • MCP Adapter: The main bottleneck is currently code review, which has created a small backlog. There are also discrepancies between the current code and the documentation that need to be aligned.
  • Experiments Project: This project is progressing and will hopefully feed into the other projects. The team plans to formalize its roadmap and establish a process for non-code-related discussions and issues.

Meeting Format & Future Goals

  • The weekly check-in format will shift to focus on active projects, with each project having a lead facilitator.
  • The meetings will highlight upcoming milestones, specific tasks, and any blockers or opportunities to help.
  • The team will create and pin roadmap issues in each project’s GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository to provide clarity and track progress.
  • Project ownership for creating these roadmaps was assigned: Neill McShea and James LePage for MCP, Jason Adams and Felix for the JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. client, and Tammy Lister for Abilities and Jeff Paul for Experiments.

Communication & Documentation

Jason Adams will draft the first of these posts to help set the direction and format.nerated summary posted after the meeting

The team decided to coordinate communication with different audiences, such as plugin developers and hosts, to maintain a clear and consistent narrative.

They will use the Make WordPress blog to post audience-specific articles and collect feedback directly in the comments.

#check-in, #core-ai, #meeting